This part I hadn’t needed to do. I’d been born into this world, given no choice, and my blood had been spilled a hundred times since. But the Xyst men were watching, uncertain and tense. If I wanted their loyalty, I had to show them what leadership looked like—and that I was willing to stake my life for theirs.
“Your saint,” Luca said, lifting the card, “is the Virgin Mary.”
That earned a raised brow from a few of the men. Even I was caught off guard.
Luca smirked faintly. “The mother of purity. The one who brings hope to those lost in the dark.” His gaze dropped to the burning candle. “We’ll see if she saves your soul.”
I didn’t respond, just held out my hand.
Without hesitation, he sliced my palm.
My flesh tore beneath the blade. The bite of it came a second later, then the ache, and then the bone-deep throb settled in.
Luca then rested the back of his hand on the altar. As the candlelight flickered on his skin, he slowly drew the blade across his own palm. He didn’t even flinch. The slice was clean, deep. Immediately, blood welled dark and thick.
He extended his bleeding hand without a word. I met it with mine.
Our palms slammed together. Blood and ash smeared between us, sticky and throbbing, a union of the sacred and profane. My breath hitched at the contact—not just from the pain, but fromthe significance of what it meant. For the first time in my life, I wasn’t spilling blood out of duty, debt, or vengeance. I was giving it freely…for men I’d chosen. A brotherhood I wanted.
He released my hand, picked up the saint’s card, and rolled it like a cigarette. He pressed it to my palm. The paper felt cool against the heat of my wound—until he lit the edge.
Flame crawled upward.
The pain was excruciating.
I didn’t move.
Not an inch.
The burning snaked inward, searing flesh and sinew, scorching the cut with a hiss of holy fire. My jaw clenched, the only outward sign I would give.
It wasn’t just the agony—it was the symbolism. A life of sin, branded with sanctity. The Virgin’s image charred black in my palm, her ashes mingling with our blood—a mark I’d carry not as a burden, but as a vow.
By the time the flame died, my hand was sealed, scorched, and trembling. My chest was tight—not from the pain, but from the strange, foreign truth sinking into my bones.
I wasn’t just in my father’s bratva anymore. I’d found a new sort of family. Not saints. Not clean. We still made our living where the law couldn’t—or wouldn’t—reach. But there were lines we didn’t cross. No sex trafficking. No rape. No children traded into slavery. No drugs pushed into the hands of kids.
We took from those who could afford the loss. We punished the corrupt, the predators, the ones who thought power meant they could do anything without consequence.
This wasn’t Delgado’s world of rot and decay. This was a syndicate with teeth and a code—and now, I was bound to it in blood and fire.
I stepped back, my chest tight with resolve to protect my new brothers.
Luca nodded, then turned to Lucian.
He raised the next card. “Saint Longinus. The Roman soldier who pierced the side of Christ, then repented and believed. Fitting, don’t you think?”
Lucian didn’t answer, just stepped forward, jaw clenched tight.
The blade cut.
He hissed through his teeth but didn’t back down.
Luca extended his cut hand. Lucian gripped it firmly, blood smearing between them. Then I stepped in and took Lucian’s hand in mine, sealing the bond in pain and blood.
When the card hit his palm, the flare of the fire lit up his face, accentuating the hard lines as sweat beaded at his temple.
“Fuck,” he growled, “now I know why they call this branding.”
